Cartago and Coffee in Orosi

Hey All!

Yesterday I was in Cartago again to see my veterinarian friend Jose who accepted a job in San Jose in December. He is working for the department of agriculture here and for the USDA in the US. We had a nice breakfast very close to the Basilica de Los Angelos or as is commonly said here ¨La Negrita¨. The story is as follows: A little indian girl was in the woods gathering firewood and she found a small statue in a clearing in the woods. She took the statue home and placed it with her things to play with later. When she went to the woods the next day to collect wood, the statue was in the same place in the woods where it was before. She again took it home to place it with the other, but the previous one was missing. This time she placed the statue in a secure box, but again the next day she found the statue. When she went home she found the statue missing from the box. She took the statue to the priest and told him about how she found it. He did the same thing as her -- he placed the statue in a secure place and went back to the woods where he found the statue again. Eventually the priest was able to establish a church on the very spot where the statue contintued to be found. The Basilica is that church. It has been repaired and rebuilt many times. I didn´t read about how the church did during the fateful day in 1964 when the Irazu volcano erupted and much of Cartago was destroyed in the lava flow. Apparently the church did okay.

The reason the Ticos call the church ¨La Negrita¨is because of the color of the little indian girl´s skin. There was a depiction of this event under the church which showed the story I just repeated. Also under the church was a place where holy water was flowing and there were people lined up to get the water to place on their injured or infirm body parts. I thought it somewhat sacreligious to see that some bikers filled their water bottles with the water. But I´m not catholic-- what do I know. (Thanks Ruth for your question about Negrita!)

In Orosi, everywhere you go there are coffee plants. They are blooming now and smell almost as good as orange blossoms to me. They are not as powerfully fragrant, though. Their smell is a little more subtle. But like orange blossoms, watch when smelling them up close. One is likely to get bee or some other insect up the nose! The plants are first planted in small bags in the yards of the residents. When there is space in the fields these smaller plants are placed there -- after an older plant is culled. I understand from my talk with Ticos that the coffee plants will produce for about 7 years. Here are some pictures of coffee!

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